Consequences

It’s a basic law of physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and it affects each and every one of us when we do anything that requires the expenditure of energy. Of equal importance is a basic law of social interaction that is usually described as “The Law of Unintended Consequences”. Pass a law, promulgate a regulation and you usually find that some of the results are not what you wanted them to be. In the name of public protection a series of privacy laws were enacted over the past few years by social progressives who believe we, as individuals are incapable of providing for our own well being and are unable to comprehend the business of individual responsibility.

We run a business, and have financial accounts that reflect the activity and solvency of the business and let us know how effective our labor is. They also provide information that we use to keep the tax authorities happy when they come to collect their portion of the gains we accrued from our labor.

Recently we were asked by a niece and nephew who are relocating to another state to keep a general oversight on their local house which they intend to keep for income generation. Property Management is a new game for us, but they are family and family should be there to help as necessary. So we set up an account for the new endeavor and immediately fell into the trap created when politicians try their hand at social engineering. The account has to be electronically available to us for management purposes and to the niece and nephew for oversight and occasional transaction processing. And that is why we have a situation caused by misguided legislation.

Creating the account was easy, bank procedures are direct and it is in their best interest to handle our account in a business manner. But when we come to transferring monies between accounts we are told that the family, who now live several states away have to provide valid address information (Is a water bill valid identification?) and must provide that in person and only at the financial site where we established the account.  In addition the regulations are unclear if the valid address is the old address, the new address or our business address.

Until such time as the bank regulators decide what information they want and how they want it presented we are unable to move funds electronically but instead must travel to our branch bank and manually move our money between our accounts. The extra effort and frustration of having to move our own money makes a mockery of the theory of efficiency in government and making  life easier for the masses.

I eagerly anticipate the fun times when the government centralizes and automates the national health care system.